


Haze

by Askeebe



Series: Never Let Me Go [13]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/F, F/M, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Non-Consensual Touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-30
Updated: 2015-08-30
Packaged: 2018-04-18 04:02:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4691279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Askeebe/pseuds/Askeebe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The plan to take Morinth down doesn't go exactly as planned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Haze

Morinth smiled at Shepard. It was a predator's smile, full of teeth and the promise of danger. It was a smile that beckoned you in, even as you realized that behind that lovely smile was nothing but death. Shepard looked into Morinth's eyes gone suddenly black. "You want to kill for me," Morinth purred seductively.

Morinth's aura was overwhelmingly magnetic, and Shepard could feel her lips soundlessly repeat Morinth's words. She tried to shake her head. Something was wrong. There was a haze over her thoughts that kept things from connecting, but she was sure there was only one pair of bottomless black eyes that she could trust implicitly, and they didn't belong to Morinth. But whose were they? Black and green. Why did those two colors go together? She frowned as she tried to track back the thought, but she was interrupted by Morinth dragging her fingers along Shepard's arm. The touch was light, warm, and seductive. Like her smile, it promised worlds of decadent delight if only she would surrender her will to the impossibly beautiful creature in front of her.

Morinth's fingers lit a trail of fire along her arm, over her shoulder and along her neck. One finger traced a line down Shepard's chest and into the vee of her low-necked dress. Morinth leaned close and purred into her ears. "Tell me what you want, love. Tell me what you'll do for me." Then Morinth pressed a searing kiss into Shepard's neck, finding the most sensitive spot below her ear. Shepard moaned and tilted her head back, exposing her neck to the predator as heat pooled in her belly and curled tantalizingly downward. The haze settled pleasantly over her mind, pushing away everything except the warm hands on her body and the skilled lips on her neck.

She loved this feeling, the one of being touched, of feeling alive again. For too long, she had lived without the magic of touch, and she missed it. She loved the way his hands worshipped her body, the endearments he whispered in her ear. He! Not Morinth! Who was he?

Morinth's hand cupped her breast and her thumb brushed over Shepard's nipple, drawing a gasp from her. She wanted to pull Morinth closer, but alarm bells were going off somewhere deep inside. This was wrong; she knew it. Only one man could kiss her and make her feel like that. A man! Not an asari! She couldn't put a name or face to him, but she remembered a muscular body in shades of green. What was wrong with her?

"No." Shepard's voice was slurred, the word barely recognizable, but she got it out. She opened her eyes and saw Morinth's obsidian eyes only inches from her own.

"Hush, love," Morinth whispered against her lips as her hand slid down ever so slowly over Shepard's stomach. "I can show you pleasures you've never dreamed existed. I will make you burn with desire and fill your world until only I exist, and you will worship me with every breath for the delights I will give you. You are magnificent, and I will treasure you always."

Shepard could feel her resolve faltering under Morinth's honeyed words. Her body wanted that pleasure so badly. The warmth was turning into flames that would consume her. She knew she was playing with fire, but it was so tempting. Morinth touched her intimately, and Shepard gasped. Her touch was electrifying and sent shock waves through her belly and out through her fingers, but there was something missing. There was no emotional connection, only lust. Shepard wanted more. She'd had more.

Love. That's what Shepard wanted, and the mysterious man on the edges of her hazy thoughts would give her that. He had made promises, too. Promises about serving her, body and soul, about loving her, loving more than once in a lifetime. Such a tragic figure, so sad, but also strong. He had obsidian eyes as well, but his were gentle. When she looked into his eyes, she knew she was safe.

"No," she said again, and this time she pushed Morinth's hand away. "Not you. Never you."

Morinth closed the last inch between them and her lips possessed Shepard's. The asari could see her control slipping, and she was determined to make Shepard forget the man who stole into her thoughts. Morinth's body was warm and pliable against Shepard, pressing her into the couch. Her hand would not be denied as it brushed against Shepard's inner thighs and again brushed her so intimately and skillfully.

Shepard was desperately trying to paint in the mysterious man's face and recall his name. His lips were full and sensuous, and when they kissed it wasn't like this. He didn't plunder and punish. His kisses were tender and passionate. He gave as much as he took, unlike Morinth. The more she concentrated on this mystery man, the more the haze lifted. She could see his eyes, his lips, his face now. He wasn't human and for a moment, she was confused. Drell. That was his species, but what was his name?

Shepard worked both hands between her and Morinth's bodies and pushed as hard as she could. What should have sent the other woman flying across the room instead only pushed her back a few inches. "What did you do to me?" Shepard gasped out.

"I'm giving you what you want," Morinth said. The lilt was gone from her voice, replaced with a harsh rasp. Shepard could see the signs of arousal in the asari's face, the determination to continue.

"I don't want you," Shepard said. "I want Thane!" She nearly gasped in relief as his name came back to her.

"No, you're mine," Morinth growled and pressed back down on her. Morinth grabbed her wrists, and the two writhed on the couch fighting for control.

Shepard flinched as the door crashed open. A tall, regal asari wearing skintight red leather stood framed in the doorway. "Samara!" she called, but that was the only word she could get out before Morinth backhanded her hard and sprung to her feet.

Mother and daughter engaged each other in a vicious close quarters fight. Shepard staggered to her feet and leaned against the couch. She could only watch and wait to see who would be victorious. The biotic energy being loosed in the room turned furniture into matchsticks and made Shepard's hair stand on end. In the end, they were too evenly matched. They strove against each other, Samara versus Morinth, and each called for her to help. Samara's voice was calm, trusting that Shepard would do the honorable thing. Morinth's voice, however, slid along Shepard's ragged nerves, tempting and reigniting the desire that was smoldering just below her skin. Fortunately, it only took a small advantage for Samara to overpower her daughter, because that was all Shepard was capable of doing, but it was enough to tip the balance. With one last devastating punch, Samara ended her daughter's life.

The fog was clearing from Shepard's mind, but she was still unsteady on her feet. "Samara?" she asked quietly.

"Have pity on an old warrior, Shepard. I have just killed the brightest and most courageous of my daughters." Samara would never shed a tear, at least not in public, Shepard knew, but she could feel the despair in the Justicar's spirit.

Shepard put an arm around the woman. "Let's go home, Samara."

They supported each other through the filthy corridors of Omega. Shepard's mind was wandering as they walked. She would see a Blue Suns merc leaning against a doorway and would think of Morinth's smooth skin. She'd blink and they were somewhere else. They passed a darkened alleyway and she heard the unmistakable sound of passion, raw, ugly, bought and paid for, and she felt again how Morinth had forced passion onto her, and she shuddered. Vaguely, she heard Samara talking to someone, but it was too hard to focus on the words. The voice was familiar, and eventually she put a name to it. EDI. The ship. The Normandy. And there it was, gleaming outside the portholes in the docking ring.

Samara supported her as they went through the decontamination cycle. The doors opened, and Shepard's heart flip flopped as she saw the dark eyes and green lips that had pulled her from the abyss only moments earlier. "Thane?"

"Shepard," he answered and his strong arms were around her waist. "What happened?" he demanded of the Justicar.

The Justicar looked at the Commander with sadness filling her expressive eyes. "I suspect Morinth dosed her with Hallex to make her easier to manipulate. Will you help her, Thane? I need...I need time to meditate. I have fulfilled my duty, but it has left a wound on my heart."

Thane inclined his head toward the grieving woman. He didn't know all the details, but ship's scuttlebutt supplied enough that he had an idea that the mission had been deeply personal. He looked down at the human in his arms, seeing how her eyes were dilated, her cheeks and lips unnaturally flushed, incipient swelling on her cheek and lips, scratches on her neck and chest, and how her dress was subtly twisted as if someone had been wrestling with her. The signs were clear to a trained eye. Memories of Irikah threatened to surface, and he ruthlessly forced them down. Someone had forced themselves upon his siha, but only superficially. Shepard was alive and unhurt. He could learn the details later, and if Samara had left the perpetrator alive, Thane promised he would rectify the situation.

Shepard was clinging to him like a drowning woman. "Thane, I missed you," she whispered. "Don't leave me again."

His arm tightened around her. "Never," he whispered in return as he guided her to the elevator. As soon as the doors closed behind them, Shepard pressed her body against his and twined her arms behind his neck. With the low heeled shoes she was wearing, she was nearly his height, and she only had to lean in to press her lips against his. She moaned into his mouth and pushed her hips into his in an unmistakable signal. "Love me, Thane. Please."

Thane's body responded immediately, and he held her tighter. He cherished their times together, but he didn't want her to come down from her high regretting her actions. "Siha, this isn't you." He tried to disentangle her arms as they arrived on the top floor. He got her into her cabin by the simple expedient of walking there since she refused to let go of him.

"It is me, Thane. I know she gave me something, but it's me. I need you, Thane. I need you so badly. I need to feel your hands and your lips, to forget what she did to me. Please, Thane." Shepard intermixed her requests with repeated kisses to his lips, his chin and the sensitive ribbing on his neck, even as her hands started unbuckling his coat.

Thane was startled by her admission. "Who? Who did this to you?"

"Morinth," she spat as she pushed his hands out of the way and undid another buckle.

"Who's Morinth?"

The Hallex made Shepard carelessly talkative, and she was fixated on removing Thane's coat. "Samara's daughter. We set a trap. She came after me, she wanted me. Oh god, her eyes, Thane. They were so black, so empty." Shepard shivered and wrapped her arms around Thane's back and buried her face in his neck. "She made me forget you," she whimpered quietly. "I'm so sorry, so sorry."

Suddenly the pieces fell into place. Samara's daughter. No wonder the Justicar had been so bereaved. Thane held her close and buried one hand in her hair as she cried into him. "Shhh, siha. There is no need for you to be sorry."

"No, you never forget. You're a drell, and you never forget anything. You would never forget me, but she looked at me and touched me, and all I could think about were her promises and how good she was making me feel! I let you down, Thane. I forgot you. I'm so sorry. Can you ever forgive me? Please?"

He coaxed her out so he could see her face. Tears ran down her cheeks and her expression was one of misery and self-loathing. "Hush. There is nothing to forgive. You were drugged, but you will soon be whole again. And I swear to you, this Morinth will pay with her life." Thane unconsciously crushed her close to him at the thought of this asari trying to take her from him.

"She already has. Samara killed her. I helped." Shepard's simple explanation was broken by a hiccup and a sniffle.

Thane's features tightened with anger, both that his lover had been threatened and that someone else had stolen his revenge. "Good," he said savagely. He urged her to the bed, but she resisted.

"No, I have to get out of this dress.  _She_ had her hands all over me, and this dress makes me think of her." Shepard struggled ungracefully with the zipper in the back until Thane reached up and slid it down her back. She pushed the dress down and kicked it angrily across the floor.

Thane's breath caught in his chest as his lover stood in front of him wearing only a black scrap of lace across her hips and a pair of black heels, but in the next moment, his hands clenched hard as he spotted more scratches on her breast and inner thighs.

Shepard slumped against the fish tank to take her shoes off. She was still sniffling as she threw the shoe into the door. The second soon followed and then she was sitting on the floor with her arms wrapped around her knees and her face buried in her arms. Thane could see by the motion of her shoulders that she was silently crying. He sat next to her and put his arm around her shoulders.

"Siha, I have many regrets in my life, and I have learned to live with them. But right now, none loom larger than the regret that I may not personally end the life of the one who did this to you. Know this, though. I love you and nothing will change that fact. I am proud that you had a hand in ending the one who attacked you so traitorously."

She didn't answer, but she unfolded enough to climb on his lap and bury her face against his chest. He shrugged his coat off and wrapped it around her protectively, and together they held each other until exhaustion claimed her. He pressed his lips onto the top of her head and relaxed with his siha in his arms. Slowly, sleep came for him as well.


End file.
